Papua New Guinea Moves to Repeal Sorcery Act

By MATT SIEGEL

May 29, 2013

SYDNEY, Australia — The Parliament of Papua New Guinea has voted to repeal the country’s Sorcery Act and to reinstate the death penalty in certain cases to help stem an increase in violence against people accused of practicing black magic.

Such violence is endemic in the South Pacific island nation, and a rise in the number of public killings in the past year has prompted international condemnation and embarrassed the government of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

Last month, he vowed to repeal the 1971 Sorcery Act, which criminalized the practice of sorcery and recognized the accusation of sorcery as a defense in murder cases. He made the pledge after the highly publicized decapitation of an elderly former teacher by a mob whose members accused her of using witchcraft to kill a colleague.

Under the amendments passed on Tuesday, rape, robbery and murder will be among the crimes that can now draw a death sentence. Although death by hanging has been legal for decades in Papua New Guinea, a former Australian colony, no hangings have been carried out since 1954. A variety of new methods of execution — lethal injection, asphyxiation, firing squad and electrocution — were stipulated as part of the new legislation.

Daniel Korimbao, a spokesman for Mr. O’Neill, said in a statement that the decision to reinstate capital punishment was difficult but ultimately necessary to combat a culture of lawlessness and violence in the impoverished country. “These are very tough penalties, but they reflect the seriousness of the nature of the crimes and the demand by the community for Parliament to act,” he said.

Papua New Guinea has come under increased international pressure to end a growing trend of vigilante violence against people accused of sorcery. Last July, police officers arrested 29 members of a witch-hunting gang who were killing and cannibalizing people they suspected of being sorcerers.

The killing in February of Kepari Leniata, 20, who was stripped, tortured, doused with gasoline and set ablaze, caused an international outcry. The United Nations said it was deeply disturbed by her killing, which was reportedly carried out by relatives of a 6-year-old boy who, they claimed, had been killed by her sorcery.

This month, Mr. O’Neill publicly apologized to women for the high rates of sexual and domestic violence in the country, and he said he supported making crimes like aggravated rape and gang rape punishable by death.

Amnesty International, which has campaigned loudly against sorcery-related violence in Papua New Guinea, praised the repeal of the Sorcery Act but assailed the reintroduction of the death penalty. Isabelle Arradon, a spokeswoman, said that represented “several giant steps back.”